WASHINGTON – This afternoon, former U.S. Senator Scott Brown (R-MA), joined the Republican National Committee (RNC) to discuss Hillary Clinton’s campaign stop with Senator Elizabeth Warren in Cincinnati, OH.

June 27, 2016

Senator Brown: "Thank you and first of all thanks to everyone for coming on and first thing I can say after watching the joint appearance is that this is certainly not Thomas Jefferson, JFK, and/or Bill Clinton’s Party anymore. It's unrecognizable, today’s Democratic Party, that you have someone like Hillary Clinton who is talking about policies from the 90’s, which seems very much out of step with today’s Democratic Party. Socialism obviously versus growth and prosperity of the Democratic Party of yesteryear looking at it… it was quite frankly uncomfortable to watch. Looking at it, for me, it’s evident Hillary Clinton has a Bernie Sanders problem.

"As you know half the people noted in a recent poll are not going to support Hillary Clinton. Many reasons, the first of which is they believe she is part of the old guard, the old Democratic Party, and Bernie is part of a new party. You have younger millennials and others who are dissatisfied with the business as usual.

"And you have somebody as Elizabeth Warren who has for her entire career hammering away at Wall Street, criticizing almost on a daily basis, the outrages of Wall Street. In Hillary Clinton the people who support Bernie see that and what I find really problematic and hypocritical is the fact that in Warren’s own book she criticizes then Senator Clinton for selling out to the credit card companies, and obviously we all know about the millions and millions of dollars she has taken from Wall Street. Her connections to Wall Street make her virtually the queen of Wall Street and I find it very awkward and quite frankly I am not sure how she can justify it, supporting the queen of Wall Street and doing away with all the beliefs she has had for virtually her whole career.

"If you look at not only those connections to Wall Street, but also the fact that we all know Secretary Clinton gave speeches upwards of $35 million and still refuses to release those transcripts and I think we all know why. It’s because she was probably sucking up to the big banks and the financial services, and other industries on Wall Street. So that’s one of the strongest reasons a lot of those millennials are kind of fed up, and view actually Senator Warren as a sellout as well.

"Somebody who was the darling of the left, the occupy Wall Street movement. Remember she was the creator of it and they looked at her as someone who represented their interests, and her tepid endorsement after the fact that Secretary Clinton got the nomination already. Really a lot of those Bernie Sanders supporters are very, very angry because, if you recall in Massachusetts Bernie was starting to get a roll and Elizabeth Warren’s silence and not endorsing Bernie could have really changed the entire tide. So they are very, very angry still about that situation.

"We can take it a step forward about the economy and trade. They have been at odds on these issues as well. Warren, as you know, has talked about the Trans-Pacific Partnership saying it will tilt the field even more in favor of a big multinational corporations and against working families. And Hillary Clinton, who is one of most vocal champions of that agreement, calling it the gold standard of trade deals and so she is flip flopping back and forth based on what the political winds are dictating.

"How do you justify the fact that they’re both on opposite sides of that particular issue and now it’s okay for Senator Warren to, in fact, go against those strong beliefs once again. And foreign policy, we know also about foreign policy and national security, then-Senator Clinton voted for the Iraq War, while Senator Warren has been one of its loudest critics. And as we all know about what happened when Secretary Clinton, then Senator, pushed for arming the rebels, and obviously she voted against—Senator Warren—voted against that measure in the Senate.

"You can go on and on and on about the national and foreign policy disagreements that they actually have with each other, and in contrast, you look at the constant attacks, not only against the Republicans, and also against our candidate, Donald Trump. It seems hypocritical, once again, especially when you’re looking at corporate interests. And remember, Senator Warren, then when she was an attorney, worked for the big corporations in the LTV Steel case trying to deny coal miners their pension benefits.

"Once again, Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Administration were on the opposite side of that, trying to make sure that those coal miners could retain their pensions. And here you go, just another example of the disconnect. So, I found her addition to be very uncomfortable, and I’m wondering if, when you all have an opportunity to ask Senator Warren, how does she justify and reconcile these differences with her lifelong crusades against Wall Street? And then supporting the queen of Wall Street, how in fact does she justify and reconcile her disagreements not only on foreign and national security, but on the economy and trade? And then, obviously, the credibility issues come into play, not only with Senator Warren and her, obviously, heritage, and her flip-flopping on a whole host of other issues. And so I want to take questions, if anyone has any questions we can move forward, if not, we’ll wrap it up."

Question and Answer:

Beth Fouhy (NBC News)

Q. You mentioned something about Senator Warren’s heritage, as you may know, Donald Trump again today, spoke out about Senator Warren’s apparent heritage. He referred to her in a conversation with Hallie Jackson of our team as a “racist” and repeated his call that she is Pocahontas. I’m wondering if you think that’s a smart way for Mr. Trump to be campaigning at this point, going after a surrogate rather than after his opponent, Hillary Clinton and repeating the issue of her and questioning her heritage and calling her those names.

A. Well first of all, as we all know, she is not Native American, that she’s not 1/32nd, she has no Native American background except for what her family told her. The easy answer on that as you all know, is that Harvard and Penn can release the records, she can authorize the release of those records, she can take a DNA test, she can release the records herself, there’s never been any effort. And that’s the problem with not only Secretary Clinton but Elizabeth Warren, is that there is two sets of rules, there’s one for them and one for everybody else. Not only on the server and those issues obviously and the accountability issues, but also on this, I think character issue as well. You’d have to speak to Donald Trump about his philosophy about talking surrogates, but they’re virtually one in the same, the talking points that Warren’s been using for over a month now, come from the DNC and from the Clinton camp, so indirectly, Secretary Clinton is considering making someone the vice president who has very serious character flaws when it comes to honesty and credibility and dealing with her heritage and what does that do? That took away someone who truly was Native American and gave that opportunity to someone who’s not and that’s just not right, it’s a form of reverse racism quite frankly. Thank you.

James Pindell (Boston Globe)

Q. Hey Senator, there’s been a lot of conversation about Senator Warren being on the VP ticket for Hillary Clinton, I’m wondering if Donald Trump has asked you to submit financial records for his vetting team and have you done that?

A. Yeah, I’m not going to perpetuate any story regarding what I’m doing and what I’m not doing with Mr. Trump and he will release those names when he feels it’s appropriate and you can certainly direct those questions to the Trump campaign.

Alison King (NECN)

Q. Hey Senator Brown, I’m wondering if given what you see as Elizabeth Warren’s weaknesses in terms of being a possible VP candidate, is it your hope that she is chosen as the Vice Presidential candidate?

A. I have two people who have and I think America thinks as well, very serious character flaws. Obviously Hillary Clinton and her honesty when it comes to the server and the issues with Benghazi .You can go on and almost on the intersection of money and politics with the Clinton Foundation and the quid pro quo allegations of speeches and then countries and others getting special favors, those are real and the people are going to have to make their own determinations as to what rule and how much that affects their decision ultimately. And then with Elizabeth Warren, you know, somebody who’s been in the Senate for quite a while now and has not passed one bill on a bunch of different committees, she has sponsored bills that have never done anything to really help the American people except yell and scream at committee hearings and use that for fundraising letters. I read something this morning, can you imagine if I spent my 3 years in the senate just running around raising money and helping others instead of doing my job for the people of Massachusetts? So there is a double standard and I think one of the reasons she won’t get it is because of the scrutiny not only on the Native American issues but the fact that she represented corporate interests over the little guys so that goes against her philosophy that she’s fighting for the little guy. The issues regarding school loans, “the kids are getting hammered”, the kids are getting hammered because her and her husband and others in those institutions are getting paid over $350,000 to teach one class. That’s why the kid’s tuitions are going up astronomically and then you want to throw in the house flipping issues where she’s making criticisms yet her and her family have done this as well. So do I hope she gets it? That’s obviously up to Hillary Clinton I think there are much better choices but certainly she’s not going to call me and ask for me for my advice I just think Hillary would spend too much time basically defending that choice versus moving forward with someone like Senator Kaine or Cory Booker or others who I think are more vetted and more logical choices.

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